Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Revelations from an
omnipotent and omnipresent (yet unknown) God form the very basic foundation of
almost all the religions in this world. If we define religions as paths towards
(realization of) God, we find it interesting to note that the paths are as uncertain
and vague as the objective itself. The concept of an external God, the reward
and punishment variety, is almost completely illogical and dead. We do not need
anymore proof for an outright rejection than the ever increasing cases of
violence, deaths, injustice and atrocities all around us. The simple fact that such
atrocities are much more in the ‘centers of God’ highlights the utter failure
of such a custodian of Heaven and Hell. He(?) has proved to be an utter failure
and the question remains as to why we need such an external God if there is no
net growth in goodness in this world. The only rational and logical thesis
about God that remains is one about a God which is all pervasive and utterly indifferent
until the individual realizes Him (Advaita).

However, we cannot
reject revelations in the same logic as in the case of an external God. It is
politically incorrect and hazardous to name the revelations, but most of the
revelation material is gibberish. But there are parts which make good a reading
if we approach them with an open mind. One should read each of them completely and
never attempt any parallel reading or comparisons. By the way, the field of ‘comparative
religions’ is an unwanted and unnecessary discipline, contributing only to the
menace of extremism and consequent terrorism. Experts in comparative religious
studies have done maximum damage to the peaceful co-existence of multi
religions in many countries. Though revelation literature is mostly made up of
incoherent text, occasionally we come across materials that may make sense to
each of us depending upon our background. These are the areas where we should
be looking for some useful stuff that might help us.

Man’s
Limitations

Whatever advancements
we have made so far, the basic limitations of man remains. Scientifically, Man is
designed only for seeing and hearing within a specific range of frequencies. We
are blissfully ignorant of so many things happening around us at all times.
Past centuries of development have no doubt helped us in extending our indirect
reach. With special gadgets and software, we can now reach across millions of
kilometers and decipher the earlier unknown signals. Man-made satellites have
gone and landed in other planets and through the Hubble telescope we have physically
seen much more than our predecessors. Our frontiers of knowledge are ever
expanding and a newly born child is much more evolved and adapted to modern
environment than the ones earlier. Yet at one end of the complex system of discovery
gadgets, we still find the Homo Sapiens whose innate capabilities are limited.
Superman and Batman exist only in our imagination.

Very often the
useful capability that comes to the help of a ‘limited’ Man is his mind and the
power of imagination. Within our minds we can imagine anything, realistic or
unrealistic, and human mind is the only tool we have that can claim to be truly
unlimited. Depending upon the extent of knowledge we have acquired, our minds
can conjure up any amount of possibilities and even impossibilities. Many of
human inventions in the past have sprung from impossible imaginations that
ultimately proved to be truthful on close scrutiny. And if we go by the
recorded experiences of the highly evolved Gurus (especially from India), the power
of the sub-conscious mind is even more astounding. Most of the Godly
revelations have come to mankind through this route. The all-pervasive God reaches out to Man
through his mind.

God’s Limitlessness

When Man is of
limited capabilities, God has to be of unlimited capabilities. There are
several ways to prove it. One of the easiest ways to establish the limitlessness
of God is by analyzing the revelations of God. It will not be an exaggeration
at all, if such an attempt leads us to the conclusion that some men knew much
more (or at least as much) in the past than now. The relevance of revelations
comes in here. Revelations in all religions talk about many things which are
not spiritual in nature and often much beyond the knowledge of contemporary
humans. And when we analyse the revelations now by experts in the field, there
are more rocks of truth in them than specks of untruth. References to sun,
moon, stars and cosmos in the holybooks of all major religions are examples of
this. How did we come to know of such facts thousands of years back when modern
scientific discoveries and calculations are only a few centuries old? How is
the whole cosmos described in full details in Bhagavatam of Hindu Sanatana
Dharma (HSD) when space expeditions started only a few decades back? And
how is the speed of light given so precisely in Puranas’?

There can be only
one answer to these types of questions. Whatever is logically beyond man’s
realm of knowledge in terms of chronology of human development came to our
public domain from elsewhere. Revelations containing such details which have
been proved true by modern science later on have to be taken seriously. Vedic
literature in India
contains treatises on almost fields of human knowledge and the extent of
revelations contained in many of them is still much beyond the reach of modern
science. The four Vedas (of HSD) are
considered revelations of God by Hindus and we are yet to analyse fully the
more than one hundred thousand mantras
contained in them. Indian Rishis who wrote them had only their
minds as their tools when compared to the complexity of our modern rockets,
electronic gadgetry and computer software put together. They could have got such
advanced knowledge only on the initiative of God through the revelations.

A brief comparison
of what knowledge we have gathered in the past one thousand years as against
the gist of revelations contained in the various holy books is enough to arrive
at the conclusion that the religious revelations cannot be ignored. But what is
more important is the next logical step of opening up these holy texts for
further studies, interpretations, scrutiny and rigorous analysis. It is here
many of the religions have failed. For purely selfish and political reasons,
many of the holybooks are kept out of bounds from those who want to study,
analyse and criticize. Even the God who had revealed it to mankind would be
resenting the suffocating grip maintained by a few on the holybooks. While open
books will enlighten and empower the readers, closed books will only kill the
natural urge of knowledge. And ultimately all closed books will degenerate and land
up in the dustbins of history is a lesson that misses the moronic clergy.